


Hold You To Account

by bzarcher



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 09:24:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7309399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of a duel, Aaron Burr walks into a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold You To Account

Aaron Burr had grown to hate the bars.

He was no stranger to a drink, and still enjoyed a drink or two in chosen company, but the dimly lit, shabby establishment he was walking into was nothing like the taverns he’d frequented as a younger man.

When he had been younger, they had been places of energy, warm and welcoming. Free thought being exchanged. Ideas circulated. Questions posed that challenged the patrons and lead to new answers. He’d enjoyed them, even if he’d grown ever more distant from most of the friends he’d once made there.

This, on the other hand, was a place of cold and dark retreat. Of desperation. Of decay. The few men speaking loudly enough to be overheard were drunkards, their words slurred laments of how unfair the world had been to them.

He had no interest it their troubles. He felt enough of his own.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw the man he had come to this fetid pit for. Walking surely to a table at the back corner, he said nothing as he slipped into the seat facing the ruined looking occupant.

It took George Eacker a good minute to realize someone had sat across from him, and another to realize who had sat down. As his rheumy, drunk eyes slowly came to focus, Burr felt his nostrils flare with barely repressed disgust.

“Ah…Mr. Burr, sir?”

“George.”

“What are YOU doing here?”

“I heard you fought a duel this morning.”

“Oh,” his face fell, “Yeah. That stupid kid.”

“Hamilton’s kid.”

“Does it matter? The little shit was –“

Burr’s face darkened, but his voice stayed dead level as he interrupted Eacker’s excuse. “That wasn’t all I heard this morning.”

“He –“

“I heard you turned early.”

“I –“

“I heard you saw the boy was going to fire in the air.”

_“Wait –_ “

“I heard you KNEW that you weren’t in any danger, and you shot him in the chest anyway.”

“ **What –“**

Now Burr’s voice took on just a tinge of cold anger, a sharp edge as his eyes locked into Eaker’s puzzled, half panicked face.

“And I understand all this started because of a speech you claimed to be giving in _my name_.”

“About Hamilton - a disgrace! And you know as well as I do that his kids are just as bad as that arrogant little –“

Eacker stopped with a choked, puzzled sound as Burr narrowed his eyes.

“You know _nothing_  about what I do or don’t think about Alexander Hamilton.”

The silence stretched as Eacker’s face drained of color, his slack jawed expression slowly turning from confusion to actual fear.

Burr let him stew, his mind wandering. Thinking of days when he would have been meeting Hamilton to “debate” matters over a drink or two on a day like this.

Thinking of working in his law practice after the war.

Thinking of the dark haired little boy who would run up the street to visit his father next door.

Thinking of Philip and his oldest sisters, and how they’d dance in the front yard of that little house in Harlem with his Theodosia, before Eliza would stand on the porch and call them in for supper.

Thinking of what kind of agony he’d be in today, if someone had run to his door screaming that his child had been shot.

The silence finally broke when Burr stood, the feet of his chair groaning in protest as they scraped against the rough wooden floor.

“There will be Police coming for you soon, George. When you broke the dueling code it went from a matter of honor, to an act of murder. You will be going to court. It’s quite likely you’re going to hang.”

He leaned over the man as Eacker seemed to shrink, the color gone from his face, a tremble in his lips that had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed.

“Hamilton and his family deserve a chance to see you held accountable – and brought to justice. I respect that. I’m going to honor it. Because if I didn’t….there’s a very good chance that I would kill you _myself.”_

Eacker moaned a wordless plea, his voice joining the chorus of ruin that seemed to be pouring from this place. Burr didn’t even blink.

He straightened.

He turned.

He walked away.

Despite the desperate cry of his name, a moment before he reached the door, he never looked back.

There was a police station half a block away.

**Author's Note:**

> Can't exactly explain where this came out of - thinking about the fact that George Eacker was one of Burr's supporters, politically, and how that might have resonated when Burr learned about what had happened. A way to fill in Burr's absence from his last appearance in the Reynolds Pamphlet and Election of 1800, too, since we never see how he reacts directly. 
> 
> Anyway, hope people enjoyed this!


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